5-in-a-row strategies

I'm developing a minmax algorithm with alpha beta pruning.
Now I'm looking for some good (local) strategies to make the AI smarter in order to increase the pruned nodes from alpha beta.

I can think of a few moves, such as checking to make sure the opposite player doesn't win and preventing forking, also winning and creating your own forks. So any local strategies that I can perform by analyzing the board before recursively iterating is what I'm after.

Anyone know of any good strategies or resources that discuss these?

Originally Posted by Adak

io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.

Originally Posted by Salem

You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.